Organizing tip of the Day:Wrap boxes & turn them into cute storage bins!

After I spent a small fortune on my fabric bins years & years ago- I knew there had to be a better way. I was pregnant with Daisy and I wanted some cute bins for her room, but I couldn't afford new ones, so instead, I decided to paint hers. After that project, I started wrapping boxes with cute wrapping paper to save even more time and I've been doing it ever since. These are some that I have in my pantry. I love them! i add a cute label and I'm set! You may have to rewrap your boxes more often if they are used for kids toys or high touched areas in your house.
Use them in your closets, pantry, for kids toys, crafts, or for organizing stuff in the bathroom- You can justify spending $ 3.99 at Target for adorable wrapping paper when you remind yourself how much you saved by making them yourself!

Organizing your Recipes!

This project took me YEARS to finally get aroung to finishing- and honestly I just completed it a few weeks ago. I was teaching ANOTHER meal planning class at church and I was really embaressed that I had not organized my recipes in a better way- so I finally stopped procrasting and finished it! (If you know me- you know I hate to cook, so I really wasn't thrilled about this project!)
My G-ma gave me the big binder years ago with recipes put in plastic sheets and that is how I've been organizing ever since. I love that they are covered because when I splatter something on the page, I can wipe it off easily.I did go through and organize everything into sections and then had to make my own dividers. (I could go through and subcatorize, but this is one area I am NOT picky about- so this is good enough for me.) I also didn't retype any of the recipes. It's become one of my favorite things: to see one in my Grandmother's handwriting, or my Mom's, or even one I wrote down quickly on a post it while talking to one of them on the phone. Just do what works for you, that's all that's important- but get it done!

*** I also went through all of my favorite Kraft & Food magazines and tore out all the recipes I liked, and threw the magazine in the recycling bin. I had a ton of magazines to go through, but I saved a lot of space by doing it!***

How I keep My Family Organized:

I was lucky enough to find this awesome board at DI last year for $ 3.00. I've been using it for my Family Board ever since. I keep it in a central part of the kitchen where everyone looks at it 100 times a day. What I LOVED about it was the 6 different sections it had. (It was pretty ugly, so I added my own paper to match my kitchen and painted the brown cork board black to match too!) I love the dry erase calendar, 3 magnetic metal boards and 2 cork boards it has! It's perfect. Find a system that works for you and your family. You can make your own out of a giant cork board often found at thrift stores or upcoming yard sales! You can also go to abowlfulloflemons to see her binder method that is featured this week. Do what ever works for you!

My Family Board:

I have 6 sections on my board:
# 1 Section- Here I have my menu & shopping list. I covered both with contact paper so I can use my dry erase marker on them! Each week I just erase and I'm ready for a new week.
# 2 Section- is the monthly calendar. I put all of out important activities on it.
#3 Section- is for Travis & his info.
# 4 Section- holds my daily book that I keep my lists in, I keep my reciepts next to it in an envelope.
# 5 Section- is a metal dry erase board where I put important info that didn't fit on the calendar. I also have a quote that my friend Jana posted on her blog. I need the daily reminder!
# 6 Section is where I keep stuff for the kids. Right now I have their medicine schedule, chore chart and coupons they earned from school.I also have a metal basket that holds the markers I use.

*** I also keep the school menu and school calendar posted in the pantry where we see it every day.

Kitchen Tip of the day

Here is one way I save time in the kitchen & this is how I organize it:
When I come home from the grocery store, I chop up all my fruit & veggies and put them in plastic bags for the kids! I love that they are eating healthy snacks and I love that I don't have to stop what I'm doing to chop an apple when they are hungry. I also like to chop up any ingredients I know I will need for my weeks menu. I do this with onions, peppers and celery etc.... that way I have all my chopping done at once. I just leave them in the fridge or put them in the freezer!
Then I use baby wipe containers, cover them with a label- and we are good to go! ( I will be covering the sides soon- I ran out of my paper, darn.)

Money Saving Tip of the day: Make your own laundry detergent...

I've been making my own laundry soap for years now and love it. With FREE bar soap, all the time, I can make it for as low as .04 a load! (I make the dry kind. The liquid is even cheaper- but it's scary looking and I don't have space for a 5 gallon bucket in my laundry space. I have my G-ma making her own now as well as some of my friends. I've taught this in several Relief Society meetings too! Here is how I make it:

5 Cups- Washing Soda ( Found at Fred Meyer in the detergent area- yellow box)= $ 3.00
5 Cups- Borax ( Found at: Walmart, Target & Fred Meyer= $ 3.00
5 bars- soap ( I've used: Zest, Ivory & Dove)= FREE w/coupons

(This will use the entire box of Washing soda & leave 1 cup remaining of Borax)
Washes 135 loads of laundry (yes, I counted!)


Grate 5 bars of soap until fine or blend in food processor (1 bar at a time) In a bowl or mixer stir/blend 5 cups of Washing soda & 5 cups of Borax together. Add soap to Washing Soada & Borax mixture & stir.
(The laundry soap will not get sudsy like some detergents, but don't worry, it's working!) I always pre treat any stains before washing!
I gave laundry soap as gifts for Christmas this year too! Hope that inspires you!

Organizing the laundry Room- what works for me

I love bins and baskets for organizing. I keep my extra bleach, laundry soap and spot removers on the top shelf in my cute bins. On the second row: I have a siver basket that holds glass containers, lint rollers and my FREE shout wipes. I also make my own laundry soap- so that is in the big white bucket (from a yard sale) I keep 3 silver cups from IKEA for treasures I pull out of pockets. I keep change in one, small toys in another and wads of paper, buttons and misc items that come lose in the wash in the last. I hold missing socks, my iron, clean craft/dish rags for gifts in the last bin. Because I don't have space for a garbage can, I use a trash bag that I made to hold the lint and garbage from pockets- that is the colorful bag on the wall hanging from the cute black chunky clothes pin. Hope that gives you a few ideas for your laundry room!

Laundry Room (After )

Oh, now that's better... that was so gross, especially the fabric sofner cup- gag! I love my organizing rack that I have on the wall for my FREE Tide packets, fabric sheets & spot remover. ORGANIZING TIP: Be on the look out at thrift stores, dollar stores (and yard sales in a few months!!!) for cheap bins & containers you can use. You DO NOT have to spend a lot to get organized. I bought these super cute fabric bins at Ross YEARS ago and they worked great for the laundry room! (But they were way too much $- I'll show you a super cute alternative soon!)

Project of the day: Laundry Room- (Before)

I dream of having a laundry room one day with counter space to fold, room for adorable baskets, beautiful shelves that line the walls, and space for whites/darks & pinks! I am SOOO thankful for my home,I love it with all my heart, but my laundry "room" is actually in the hallway behind 2 doors. I am blessed to at least have shelving, but other than that- it's just the washer & dryer in there. It makes it difficult to do laundry, and when I get behind, look out!- the laundry begins to overtake the entire hallway! I needed to spend some time cleaning- I hope it inspires you to do the same!Here are my nasty before pictures- even I have clothes that fall behind the dryer, lint that collects and nasty gooey stuff that collects underneath & in the bleach/softner holder! Talk about nasty- and why did I wait so long to do this???

Reorganizing the book shelf:

I am lucky to have my books enclosed to help with the look of clutter- but I've needed to reorganize for a long time now! I took all the books out and organized them into groups. Because I had 3 shelves- I did 3 groups: Church, Self help (all mine!) & Novels/poetry/other. It feels good to have that crossed off my list for now. Have fun getting your's done! I'll work on the kids tomorrow- it's time to be a Mom again and fix dinner & take care of sick kids!

Project of the Day: The book shelves:

Here are my before pictures, as you can see it was time to rearrange.

Tip of the day:

Wash those dish rags, sponges and dish scrubbers!! They carry so many terrible germs! I throw my dish scrubbers in the dishwasher everytime I run a load load of dishes. I use my rags and sponges once and throw them in when I wash my cleaning rags!

107 pairs of shoes- Clothes in the shed

So, these are just the clothes the girls are NOT wearing at the moment, not to mention their closet that is crazy full. I needed to reorganize 0-3 M, 6-12, 2T & 3T stuff, so last night the fun bagan! 7 totes full of clothes and we counted 107 pairs of shoes!!!!THAT THEY ARE NOT WEARING!! (I am quite embarressed actually! Even when I get them for .25-.50 each- that's a lot of shoes! I don't think I can even justify this one!)

Goals this week

I have a few more projects this week and I will be done with the 21 day challenge + all the other projects I did on my own that were before I ever found her blog. My goals next week are:

File/organize 2007 & 2008 bills (2009 & 2010 are were done about 2 months ago!)
Finish kids school binders- Put in plastic sleeves & do covers
Dresser drawers- refold all clothes
Reorganize freezers- Did it 2 weeks ago, but need to redo it!
Reorganize Willows clothes in shed- (make sure all clothes are in correct bins)


That's my list... hope you are having making your's and getting stuff done!!!!

A labor of Love

Years ago, I started making calendars of the kids for my Mom, dad, Trav's parents, and 2 sets of grandparents for Christmas presents. It became a tradition and I enjoyed making them each year. In the beginning I even drew the calendar grids by hand & had them spiral bound at the copy store, but then I got smarter/lazier & started buying calendars and then covering the ugly pages with super cute scrapbooked pages that i lovingly made by hand.I made 5 each year and it was ok, until this past christmas- I just DID NOT WANT TO MAKE THEM! I was tired, worn out and realized Willow, my 1 year old was going to make it impossible to get all my scrapbook stuff out- so I just decided not to make them this year. I justified it by telling myself: don't worry- you didn't send out many christmas cards either, it's ok to simplify or JUST NOT DO SOMETHING!!
So I was fine with my decision for a few days... and then the guilt set in and I could hardly take it. I told myself if I found premade calendars, I would just use their ugly pages and not worry about it- so guess what I found at Michael's for .50 each, days later??? You guessed it: premade calendars!(I always get them there, I just hadn't seen them all holiday season so I thought they wern't selling them that year)
So, I picked up 5 of them and began the process...
Normally each calendar took approx. 5 hours to complete. Times that by 5 and you have AT LEAST 25 hours worth of love put into these babies. This year it only took 7! So definatly much better! I'm sorry for slacking this year Mom & Dad, but at least you're getting one!!! Although they are VERY simple with no embellishments because they are going through the mail, I at least did it!!!

Little project

When we moved in our house 3 years ago, this ugly brown mirror was on the back of the bathroom door. Because it wasn't broken & I'm super cheap- I kept it, but the brown color has bothered me FOR YEARS!!! Finally, this morning I hot glued some cute ribbon to it and now life's good again!